We had a last minute calling to take our bikes on another wee adventure before winter 2023 fully sets in – #becausewecan ??
Looking a bit closer to home we investigated the options north from Adelaide and into Australia’s red centre. The Mawson Trail is a 900km well documented route that will take us from the wine regions in the Adelaide hills north thru pastoral country through to the Flinders Range on the edge of the Outback. From the end of the Mawson the prospect of biking big flat country, days between water sources and even more days between food resupply options is daunting…
We didn’t have a lot of confidence in the woman manning the oversized luggage area in Melbourne airport when we were transiting to Adelaide, so no big surprise when we arrived to our destination and could see via my iPhone that the AirTag on my bike was showing it was still in Melbourne. 20 hours later we were reunited but Alans box looked like it came off second best in a confrontation with a forklift.
After a hurried rebuild of our bikes we were heading out of Adelaide just after 3pm, hoping we would get to the Cudlee Tavern and Caravan park before dark. It was a close call with my 450 lumens headlamp barely sufficient for the last few kms up the Torrens river gorge rd but we made it.
Next morning we joined onto the Mawson Trail route proper and over the next few days enjoyed quiet country roads through undulating terrain and thru small country towns. The route crossed ridges before dropping us into the Barossa Valley wine growing region and wine trails. With strong head winds and rain (that wasn’t in the game plan) we took lesser tracks thru a wilderness area and experienced some of the infamous sticky mud after an overnight thunder and lightening storm.
Our accommodation over the first few days varied from campgrounds to a country pub, a 200 year old miners cottage, a wilderness hut and a refurbished railway carriage that may have been part of the Old Ghan railway that we will follow after the Mawson ends.
